


risk and reward

by novoaa1



Series: sundresses and semi-automatics [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Blood and Violence, College, F/F, Guns, Kidnapping, Reader-Insert, Torture, might up the rating later for like sensual shits in the second chapter, reader gets like kidnapped and tortured and stuff, reader is a student at nyu, theres some blood but personally i dont think it's that graphic? but who knows, you wear cute dresses and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: Life as the daughter of a mob boss is... complicated. Ithasto be, and for you, it's no exception.And, really, you're okay with that—things being complicated, that is, because above all else, they're manageable... sort of.(Sometimes, though, even 'complicated' teeters towards the wrong side of terrifying.)
Relationships: Natasha Romanov/Reader
Series: sundresses and semi-automatics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602451
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	1. "this... escalated quickly"

**Author's Note:**

> thought of this randomly 
> 
> let me know your thots?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I would advise you to prepare yourself,” he informs you (his vainglorious tone wrought with just enough mock sympathy to have a stab of righteous anger flaring in your gut amidst the all-too-pervasive terror gathered there) whilst brandishing a sizable silver dagger from his waistband and bending to bring himself eye level with you, his pungent breath positively _acidic_ against your chin. “This… is going to hurt. I will make sure of that.”
> 
>  _Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i edit this? meh
> 
> sorry for any mistakes

It happens on a Thursday—you’re on campus in the City, and you’ve only just finished attending your Mandarin course (which you had twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays), walking swiftly out the lecture hall and down 5th Ave towards your routine shortcut through the lively Washington Square Park up ahead on the way back to the bar, where you know Natasha and your father will both be anxiously awaiting your return. 

You never make it there. 

You’re just passing Washington Mews side street (the one that runs directly perpendicularly to 5th Ave) when you feel it—a pair of eyes watching you… maybe more than one, though it’s not like you’re anything close to an expert on this stuff. 

( _Natasha would know_ , you think as you pick up your pace to more of a brisk fast-walk down the bustling sidewalk.

Though, you’re not sure how much good that does you right now, when Natasha’s all the way on the other side of the park waiting for you, none the wiser to the increasingly likely reality that you’re not going to make it the next 100 feet before some decidedly calamitous fate befalls you.)

You instinctively draw your bare arms tightly around yourself as various strangers brush your exposed shoulders striding quickly past in their haste to get to their various destinations; suddenly you feel all too exposed in yet another semi-revealing sundress (a snowy-white color dotted sparingly with aesthetically-doodled sunflowers) composed of light-weight chiffon fabric that doesn’t quite reach mid-thigh and dips low beneath your shoulder blades and collarbones respectively, leaving a fair amount of skin on display unto the wandering eyes of anyone that spares so much as the briefest glance in your direction. 

It also doesn’t quite help that your long brunette locks are pulled back into a messy ponytail high on your scalp, its wavy strands tickling the base of your neck with every stride—but, really, there’s nothing to be done about it now, you reason.

Your heart hammers painfully in your chest while you speed-walk vigorously past the tall red-brick building that vaguely resembles a typical multi-storied walk-up apartment (which you know to be the Gluckson Ireland House, center for Irish studies at NYU)—and, that’s when it happens. 

That’s when a figure dressed all in blacks and charcoal greys lunges out from behind a store front, and before you can even think of calling for help he’s closing a rough, calloused palm around your exposed arm and pulling you solidly up against his broad wool-clad chest and pressing something cold, circular and metallic against your exposed spine from behind—the barrel of a _gun_ , you can tell; its flat, broad cylindrical shape far too discernible to be anything other than a silencer to muffle the burst, something your father always required of his lackeys to utilize when carrying out kill orders on high-stake targets. 

A stubble-ridden cheek brushes roughly against your left temple, and the man growls lowly against your ear, “Scream, and I kill you.” His words are positively ripe with a weighty Russian accent that renders his meaning initially unclear as your brain scrambles to understand, and his breath reeks of cigarette smoke and cheap beer—it’s warm against your skin, _too_ warm, and you shudder reflexively at the utterly deplorable sensation of it. 

(It’s different from the feeling of Natasha’s measured exhales ghosting across your flesh, leaving behind heated tingles and smarting bites and gentle kisses in their wake—you loathe it so much you can scarcely focus on anything else save for how your aching heart thuds with fear and panic and a bone-deep sadness that Natasha isn’t here like you so badly wish she could be, isn’t here to save you and wrap you in her strong arms and tell you everything’s going to be okay… God, but you hope she finds you.)

“Good,” he rumbles approvingly when you don’t dare move a muscle in his suffocating grip, his stubbly facial hair dragging scratchily against your cheek as you feel him break into a pompous smile. 

“Act normal and _walk_ ,” he orders gruffly then, the freezing cold barrel of his silenced pistol pressing harder against the exposed skin of your lower back as he shifts himself to sling his free arm around your narrow shoulders, that infuriating grin of his still pressed uncomfortably into your skin all the while. (Seriously, you’d be surprised if there isn’t a full-on imprint of it by now.)

After trying (and failing) to suppress the full-bodied shudder that subsequently racks your body in reply (which only causes his smug smirk to widen further against the delicate skin beneath your jaw), you obey: ambling stiffly along the crowded sidewalk with his burly figure pressed all-too-tightly against yours, allowing his steely grip to guide you and forcing a somewhat neutral expression upon your features while you’re at it, as per his ~~request~~ threat. 

(Not that anyone would be likely to pay you any mind, anyhow—it was New York City, after all.)

You try to remember the last thing you said to your father, to _Natasha_ when you saw her last. You try to recall the last time you told her you loved her. Hot tears promptly well in your eyes, seconds from spilling onto your tanned cheeks, when you realize that you can’t. 

You wonder if you’re ever going to see her again. 

(And, for the first time in a fairly long while, you’re downright petrified that you never will.)

— — 

You awake in a dark and spacious area—an abandoned warehouse, you quickly deduce, with dusty technicolored metal crates (which you presume to be empty) littering the spacious interior and a once orange-painted cobweb-covered forklift with mismatched tires (one was very evidently a spare) parked haphazardly against the wall a couple hundred feet off to your right. 

You’re sitting in a stiff metal chair that chills your exposed skin, your arms restrained securely behind the rectangular chair back in a plastic zip-tie that digs painfully into your wrists. Your left cheek feels rather sore, too, and you think your lower lip is split in two places; you faintly remember the man who’d grabbed you slamming your face roughly against the warm metal of his all-black-painted getaway van (not a terribly original choice of a kidnapping vehicle, all things considered) in order to keep you still whilst he went about restraining your wrists.

All in all, once you’ve (somewhat) regained cognizance of your senses, you find yourself having to pointedly tamp down on the wholly inane part of you that wants so badly to laugh at the utter _cliché_ of it all even as the ice-cold fear from earlier makes a disconcerting reappearance low in your gut, your stomach tightening itself into sickening knots. 

You don’t see anyone around, which you find the slightest bit strange (but a relief all the same)—listening carefully for any sign of your captors returning, you begin twisting your wrists together in an attempt to find some slack and scrabbling at the hard plastic zip-tie with frantic fingertips to perhaps find some way to free yourself. 

You don’t get very far before the man from earlier makes a reappearance… or, at least, it’s who you _presume_ to be the man from earlier, because he’s tucking a pistol (a fully-automatic Stechkin, you think—Soviet, with a 5.5” barrel) capped with a standard suppressor into the waistband of his jeans as he approaches, and there’s a fair amount of stubble all across his angular chin (abundant enough to match the buzzed dark-brown hair on his scalp) that looks more like a too-dark shadow on his skin in the scant lighting of the darkened warehouse than anything else.

The sight of him is familiar enough to make your stomach turn, knowing he'd been up against your body just minutes (or hours—you think you passed out one he threw you in the back of the van) earlier. 

He has a thin pinkish scar running diagonally upon his right cheekbone just beneath a messily-tattooed ‘x’ at the base of his eye socket, and blocky Cyrillic letters etched in black ink beneath his thick knuckles on either hand, along with a remorseless glint lingering in milky-green eyes that makes you about 99% sure you’re not getting out of this alive. Or at all, really. 

“Y/N Y/L/N,” he drawls in that terribly familiar heavy Russian accent as he draws nearer, dragging the soles of his combat boots ever-so-slightly against the concrete flooring on every step (eventually coming to a rather abrupt halt just a couple feet from your restrained figure)— _Yes_ , you think to yourself. _This is the same man who took me. I think. Probably_. “I will not lie—I thought you would be a much harder person for me to find.” You remain silent, refusing to let even a fraction of the putrid anxiety roiling in your gut show upon your bruised features. “Perhaps your father does not care for you quite so much as you think.”

You can’t help it—you roll your eyes irreverently at that, a breathy scoff escaping you before you can think better of it. 

“You think I am wrong?” he questions, something liked dry amusement apparent in his heavily accented tone, bushy eyebrows creeping up towards his widow’s peak hairline as a slow smirk spreads across thin pinkish lips. 

“I _know_ you’re wrong,” you correct emphatically with a hell of a lot more certainty than you feel, causing his grin to stretch even wider upon pale shadowy features until crooked rows of yellowed teeth glint in the low light. “They're gonna find me, and once they do, my dad’s gonna put a bullet in your brain—provided _she_ doesn’t get to it first.”

(You don’t bother elaborating on who 'she’ is—it’s not like this guy needs to know.)

“You have spirit,” he muses more to himself than to you, a slightly hoarse chuckle escaping his throat. “I like that,” he states, then pauses for a moment, feigning thoughtfulness. "However, it means also that you will not be a cooperative hostage… but, that is okay. I think I will enjoy breaking you.”

_Christ_. “This… escalated quickly,” you remark stupidly (— _damn_ you and your incorrigibly impulsive nature), then shrink further into your seat as his bemused gaze turns sadistic, almost _hungry_ upon you. 

“I would advise you to prepare yourself,” he informs you (his vainglorious tone wrought with just enough mock sympathy to have a stab of righteous anger flaring in your gut amidst the all-too-pervasive terror gathered there) whilst brandishing a sizable silver dagger from his waistband and bending to bring himself eye level with you, his pungent breath positively _acidic_ against your chin. “This… is going to hurt. I will make sure of that.”

_Fuck_. 

— — 

Your bruised cheek aches; your lower lip is swollen and crusted over with dried blood; though, most prominently at the current moment, you can’t help but whimper at the intensity of the pain that rockets through your being as the man holds your bare shoulder steady with one rough hand and carves a relatively small incision into it with his blade near the edge of your collarbone, his lactescent green eyes alight with nauseating excitement as crimson blood seeps warmly down your arm, past your elbow and along your forearm, all the way down to the very tips of your limp fingertips before falling to spatter soundlessly onto the cracked cement flooring beneath you. 

There’s another long gash running parallel beneath your right collarbone and stopping just short of your sternum, a thin (but rather viscous) trail of blood trickling down from its lowest point and staining the fleece white chiffon of your dress along with the matching lacey bralette you’re wearing beneath it. 

He’s laughing at your pain all the while, chuckling joyously to himself as if finding the whole thing particularly amusing, his calloused hands unfailingly steady as he finally withdraws the knife to wipe its long blood-stained blade against the front of his jeans, leaving a darkened burgundy stain upon the worn navy-blue denim in its wake. 

“Had enough yet?” he questions, sounding indubitably smug. 

“Not even close,” you retort hoarsely, your voice rough and gravelly— _weak_.

You immediately regret your snarky reply as he quirks a single bushy brow at you, the curve of his thin lips slightly dimpling either stubble-ridden cheek. “Challenge accepted.”

_Oh, fuck_. 

He focuses his attentions upon your face, next, bringing the now spotless blade up to hover perilously close to your unbruised cheek, his free hand releasing the suffocating grip upon your shoulder to curl tightly around your throat, effectively cutting off your air supply and stilling whatever slight movement you might’ve tried to enact in some futile ploy to escape. (Though, to be fair, at this point, the prospect of escape did seem more an impossibility at this point than anything else.)

He’s only just begun to press the needlelike point of the blade into the sweat-dotted skin beneath your right eye, the sting of it drawing a pained hiss from your throat as it slices through your skin—and, that’s when it happens. 

Or, perhaps more accurately—that’s when _Natasha_ happens. 

It’s all something of a blur to your pain-addled mind: cloudy grey smoke suddenly billows out into the space from opposite ends of your vision (— _smoke grenades_ , you think hazily), obscuring everything in a pervasive ashy fog and filling the dilapidated warehouse with the astringent scent of something burning. 

All too soon, you feel his body tense above yours before he’s yanking you forcefully up from your seated position (you cry out abruptly in pain at the way the sudden movement overextends your elbows) and whirling you around as he stumbles further and further back (dragging you along all the while) from the source of the rapidly spreading smoke.

You sag heavily against his hefty form behind you when he finally draws to a halt, cool blade held immovably against your throat with one hand whilst the other rummages somewhere you can’t quite see before expeditiously reappearing with the pistol ( _definitely a Stechkin_ , you note absentmindedly) from his waistband gripped tightly in hand, his well-muscled arm coming to rest fixedly upon your blood-stained shoulder and straightening to point the suppressor-equipped barrel at the gradually receding smoke up ahead—and then, they wait. 

They don’t wait for very long, but it’s agonizing nonetheless, watching the billows of stormy-grey fog slowly subside to reveal even more near-opaque misty smog in its wake, until finally, finally, _finally_ , you catch sight of a lone figure (one you’d recognize anywhere) standing proudly amidst the receding vapor, twin Škorpion vz. 61 fully automatic machine pistols in either hand, their compact barrels trained to aim straight through you—but, she won’t hurt you. She won’t shoot, not while you remain so blatantly in the crossfire. You know that. (In some capacity, you think you always have.)

“Stay _still_ ,” he snarls cruelly in your ear when you find the nerve to squirm in his grip, then presses the blade of his dagger even further into the soft skin of your throat until you’re sure he’ll break skin. (A moment later, you’re proven correct by the small droplet of warm blood you can feel tracing the hollow of your throat and coming to rest just atop your collarbone… for now, at least.)

“You’re freaking _screwed_ ,” you quip boldly back with the barest hint of a smirk, ignoring the twinge of pain in your lip as you do, not even to mention the way Natasha’s eyes flash from a mere handful of feet away with something like a warning… though, a warning for _whom_ , you aren’t quite sure. 

“Be _quiet_ ,” he hisses urgently in your ear, then lifts his chin to address Natasha, the barrel of his silenced Stechkin pistol still bravely pointed her way “No moving,” he shouts over to her. (You’ll admit you’re a bit begrudgingly impressed at the air of self-assuredness he manages to retain even now, knocking on Death’s proverbial door—whether he knows it or not.) "I will not hesitate to kill her if you do.”

Natasha pouts at that, catlike jade green eyes glinting dangerously in the faint light, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man is going to die today. “Not even if I say ‘please’?”

“Do you think this is funny?!” he screams (he sounds utterly enraged), spittle flying over your shoulder to land upon the weathered cement flooring, close enough that you think you could reach to smudge it into the concrete with the sole of your Converse sneaker if you strain yourself far enough. 

“Now,” Natasha announces to (seemingly) no one in particular, and—

_Thwip!_

Something flies down from above—an impossibly fast blur through the air and a sickening wet crunching noise as—

An ear-splitting roar of agony erupts from your captor, then, his hold upon the knife against your throat palpably slackening as you belatedly take note of the thin fiberglass shaft of a sleek black arrow skewering his leather-clad arm, its serrated tip slick with blood. 

( _Clint?_ your brain questions dazedly, though you’re sure it’s not. It _can’t_ be.

He’s in retirement, after all, and has been for several years now.) 

His pistol falls in time with a fat droplet of blood from the arrow's tip, clattering noisily on the ground at your feet—the knife clangs next to the floor beneath upon another _thwip!_ and successive _crunch!_ sounding off in your ears along with a renewed bout of positively deafening hysteria on your jailer’s part as another arrow shaft spears through the man’s clothed forearm just inches beneath the first, causing him to stagger back on unbalanced feet and—

_Bang!_ You shut your eyes instinctually as Natasha’s gun goes off, something (the man, you presume) hitting the ground with a raucous _thud_ somewhere off behind you—and despite the weakness in your body as you sway perilously in place, or the way those vaguely amorphous black spots begin to dance at the edges of your vision, you can’t help but think three things: 

One, the man is dead. (Natasha never misses.)

Two, Natasha is here. (Just as she promised she’d always be.)

And, as for three? You are safe. 

You are _safe_. 

(After that, it’s all too easy to let the pain and exhaustion flooding your senses to overwhelm you—to surrender to that consummate blackness lingering in the edges of your vision, allowing it to creep further and further across your bleary periphery until the only thing you know is a voice you think you recognize calling your name and a blessedly familiar scent permeating your nostrils like the sweetest perfume and a glimpse of eyes so green you can’t help thinking you could drown in them if given the chance. 

And then, nothing. Absolutely nothing.)

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i used to use dual wield skorpions in cod until i realized how TRASH they were cause my brothers were actually good at the game and it's not like young audrey had anything betteR to do


	2. aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lsdkfjdlkfj

You wake slowly—like the first winds of autumn melding seamlessly with the stubborn remnants of a warmer August breeze, bringing with it a ubiquitous chill that seeps leisurely into each corner of the earth, nearly invisible and altogether shrouded in obscurity unto eyes ill-equipped to search for it… that is, until it’s everywhere—until the last vestiges of balmy summer are long since gone, and the brisk air all around is positively _ripe_ with the omnipresent cold of sweet-smelling autumn. 

And yet, the change appears sudden to those who do not know how to look for it, for those who do not bother attempting to in the first place. 

(For you, it's the farthest thing from sudden.)

Your head feels impossibly heavy and your eyelids aren’t any better, and really, you can’t even feel your other extremities—but there’s something almost euphoric about it all the same. Freeing. 

Still, there’s some part of you lying dormant for the moment that yearns to return, yearns for the familiarity of something—some _one_ , really, who you know to be waiting for you on the other side: _Natasha_. 

_Always_ Natasha. 

It’s with that lingering in the forefront of your mind that your eyelids flutter open and you find yourself wincing reflexively at the all too bright lights overhead even as a warm feather-light touch upon the delicate skin of your wrist manages to keep you grounded in a way little else you’ve ever known has managed to with such effortless vigor—you’ve no doubt of to whom the angelic touch in question belongs: Natasha. (Who else?)

Your descent into reality, into _awareness_ , is gradual… sluggish—though, to anyone else (namely Natasha), you’re sure it appears anything but. 

Your vision is blurry but it’s vision just the same, bright and colorful and _real_ —you see rectangular fluorescent lighting above installed amidst a checkerboard array of generic white-grey ceiling tiles, a steady rhythmic _beep-beep-beep_ coming precisely in time with each beat of your heart thudding tangibly in your ears, along with a marginally disconcerting _sterile_ scent clinging to every inch of your surroundings that makes you long for Natasha’s vanilla-scented embrace… so, a hospital, you decide—you’re in a hospital. 

(Admittedly, though, you think you’re coming to that realization rather late, all things considered.)

You blink a couple times to clear your vision, feeling Natasha’s intelligent green-eyed gaze upon you all the while—your head aches and your tongue feels like sandpaper and your phantom limbs throb painfully as you lie there, battered and inert… but _alive_ , above all else.

You lower your cloudy gaze from the ceiling tiles above to land upon Natasha where she sits vigil at your bedside, all stiff posture and watchful eyes and tentative fingers idly stroking the back your hand from wrist to knuckle. 

Now, in the light, you can see her— _really_ see her.

She quite apparently hasn’t bothered to shower or change her clothing since you saw her last, if the streak of soot tracing her sculpted cheekbone and slightly mussed look of her typically so impeccably styled pin-straight hair is anything to go by. She’s wearing a skin-tight pair of blue jeans and black tank offset perfectly by that tan leather jacket she’d always loved so much, and maybe you can’t quite see it (she was always a master at hiding) but you know she’s armed to the proverbial teeth with anything and everything in her arsenal: throwing knives, daggers, various kinds of grenades (smoke, frag, Semtex, etc.), pistols, surplus ammo… _everything_. 

(You can’t help thinking you’ve never laid eyes upon a sight so lovely.)

She quirks a single brow at you when your tired gaze meets hers, something like a cocksure smirk twitching at her lips even whilst well-concealed (but not invisible, by any means—not to you) hesitance gleams in eyes of breathtaking malachite-green. 

“Hi,” you manage, throaty and hoarse. 

She tilts her head at that, regarding you shrewdly with conflicted eyes even as the ghost of a genuine smile appears upon her regal features. “Hi.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” you croak out, and she snorts. 

“Very cute.”

You swallow thickly, allowing your bemused expression to fade in favor of a decidedly more genuine one for what you’re about to say next, because you want her to know more than anything that you _mean_ it. Every word. “I missed you.”

Natasha winces at that, like it physically pains her to hear. “You worried me. And Clint.”

( _Ah. So it was Clint covering Natasha from above._)

You feel your cheeks heat under her intent unreadable gaze. “Sorry.”

“Don’t do that,” Natasha protests, clenching her jaw tightly as visible anger flares in verdigris eyes. (The sight of it causes you to shiver fearfully despite knowing damn well she won’t hurt you, not intentionally. _Never_ intentionally.) 

“Do what?” you ask carefully, unable to keep your voice from wavering dangerously all the while. 

“Don’t apologize. Not for _him_ ,” she spits out, placing a bitter emphasis upon the last syllable. 

(It sends a wave of frigid unease throughout your being, and in its cataclysmic wake you’re left having to remind yourself all over again that she won’t hurt you, that she’s never given you a single reason to believe she’d ever hurt you no matter how vehemently your fragmented remains of trauma-ridden cognizance seem to scream that she’s just like _him_ , that you’re not safe here, even while the rational side of you knows damn well that nothing could be farther from the truth.)

“He’s gone now, Nat,” you tell her, willing yourself not to wince at the way your voice trembles. _Again_. “I’m okay.”

“You’re on a lot of medication for the pain,” she replies quietly (though her words are wrought with a faint yet biting note of hostility that hits you like a sucker punch to the gut), her roughened fingertips still gently stroking at the back of your hand. “It’s going to hurt later.”

“So?” you counter, righteous indignation creeping into your tone. “I’m alive, right? That’s what matters.”

“He _hurt_ you, Y/N. He _hurt_ you to get to _me_ ,” she argues scornfully back, voice audibly rough around the edges in an uncharacteristically raw show of emotion—you can’t help the way your heart breaks for her, then, the way that righteous indignation instantaneously softens into something vastly different in your chest, something you know to be genuine affection and adoration and _love_ … for _her_. “And I… I wasn’t there."

“It’s not your fault, Nat.”

Her next words come through tightly clenched teeth: “How can you say that?"

“Because it’s true,” you answer with a shrug, feigning indifference as best as you can manage. “I had a target on my back long before we ever met. Ever since I was born, really. You know that as well as I do.”

“I think getting involved with me just made the target that much bigger.”

“So?”

Natasha's forest-green eyes flash dangerously with something like reproach, but you refuse to falter—not now, not when you stand to lose the one person who ever made it all feel worth it: the endless gunfire and meaningless savagery and blood-stained stacks of cash you inherited the moment your late mother birthed you into this world. 

“What do you mean, ‘So’?” she hisses, angered disbelief coloring her derisive tone. 

“Do you love me?”

Natasha blinks, momentarily thrown—God, you’ve never seen her look so lost. “What?”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “You heard me.”

She’s silent for a while, lips pursed together in a stubborn show of obstinance—eventually, though, she heaves a long sigh before faintly murmuring, “You know that I do” in that quiet voice, the one that never fails to have warmth seeping through your veins like consecrated ambrosia from the heavens above, a hallowed antidote to render all the rest of it blissfully meaningless in your temporal periphery. 

“Then, what’s the rest of it matter?”

“It’ll matter if you get _killed_ on my account,” she quips back, but it’s milder this time—almost devoid of her earlier belligerence. ( _Almost_.)

“Who says it’d be on _your_ account?”

“It won’t matter whose fucking _account_ it’s on if you’re _d_ —" she halts herself abruptly before she can say it, as if scared that even speaking it into existence will bring it upon the two of you. 

(You’ve never been one for superstition, and as far as you know she hasn’t either, but you understand it just the same—the fear of even thinking that Natasha might one day leave, because there’s not a single week that goes by upon which that notion doesn’t cross your mind and you find yourself terrified beyond words can say that even daring to conceptualize it will render it real. 

It births a unique breed of conflict deep within your chest, the knowledge that you’ve both become so intimately intertwined that even the thought of becoming anything less seems to tear you apart from the inside-out—one between sentiment and trepidation, because you love her, you love her, you _love_ her, but it’d fucking _destroy_ you if she ever left, and you’re not ready for that. 

You’re hard-pressed to think that there will ever come a day upon which you will be.)

“I can’t lose you,” Natasha admits softly then, like it’s a secret, emotion-filled eyes downcast and lower lip caught nervously between her teeth. “Do you understand that?” she asks desperately, _brokenly_ , watery green-eyed gaze darting back up to meet yours—briefly, you wonder if this is what drowning feels like. “I _need_ you with me.”

You exhale slowly, hot tears welling in your eyes to match Natasha’s glassy irises, ignoring the raspy quality to your wavering voice when you whisper out, “Then that’s exactly where I’ll be.” 

Natasha sighs, a telling sound of quasi-defeat even as you know damn well this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. “Fine. You win. For now.”

_Called it_.

You grin triumphantly all the same, pointedly refusing to acknowledge the pain in your scabbed-over split lip and battered cheeks as you do so. “Hell yeah, I do.”

Her gaze narrows. “We’ll be revisiting this conversation later, once you’ve healed.”

“Looking forward to it,” you simper cheekily in a sing-song tone, and Natasha rolls her eyes pointedly in reply even as you see an affectionate grin tug at full rosy-pink lips— _God, she’s stunning_ , you think to yourself. “I love you, Nat.”

“I love you, too, Y/N.”

— — 

You heal rather quickly, all things considered… A week passes, and then two, and then three—by that time, it no longer hurts to flex your wrists or clench your jaw or break into an ear-splitting grin from cheek to cheek whenever Natasha so much as holds your hand. 

The only remnants of that day that linger upon your body are thin, puckered rosy-pink scars atop your shoulder and beneath your collarbone and just below your eye where he cut into your skin with that razor-sharp blade, where he made you bleed for him until your crimson essence formed a puddle on the concrete beneath you and you couldn’t help pondering (even if only for a fleeting moment) just how goddamned _fragile_ you really were, just how painfully easy it would be for someone to take and take and _take_ until there wasn’t anything left of you, until the very blood that ran through your veins stopped pumping… until you were _dead_ , and no amount of money or firepower or bone-wrenching _anguish_ could ever bring you back. 

You’d always known your life would be different from your peers, more _dangerous_ —still, there remained a stark difference between possessing abstract knowledge of a concept and being made to experience it in full, and God, but you weren’t ready to really, truly understand. 

(You’re not sure you ever could have been.)

Still—for better or worse, you understand now. You understand that you aren’t invincible (the farthest thing from it, actually), and that Natasha isn’t either, and that maybe the two of you together is deadly but hell if it somehow isn’t simultaneously the closest thing to perfect you’ve ever known, and hell if you aren’t more sure than you’ve ever been that you can’t do this without her… And, besides, you wouldn’t want to, anyhow.

(What’s more, you know deep within the very bones of your being that she feels the same—that she always has.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i just started another thing in this verse and it's already like almost ~1k words of filth so be on the lookout for that soon-ish maybe 🧐

**Author's Note:**

> here’s the link to my


End file.
